“I want to say one word to you. Just one word: plastics.” Apparently half-drunk, distant-relatives looooove The Graduate — or at least think that that infamous bit of advice is in any way helpful to graduating seniors. To those who may consider dropping this at their next grad party: please don’t. That said, there are plenty of movies out there that can help those men and women who will soon be donning caps and gowns to better live their lives in these fragile times. No, I’m not talking about Alexis Bledel’s Post Grad — little on the nose, no? Here are seven tidbits of wisdom every soon-to-be graduate should ingrain in their memories, and a few digestible movies to help them go down.

Coyote Ugly is one of those movies that stuffy, pretentious film critics jump on – they are never short on ways to knock down the often shallow, but still entertaining works of Jerry Bruckheimer. Personally, I have always been someone who would rather be entertained – and sexy women dancing on a bar with a cliché love story and some cheesy dialogue is certainly entertaining, to say the least.